


So You Think That If I Haven't Gotten Diagnosed I Can't Possibly Be Sick?

by AuroreChaton



Category: No Fandom
Genre: ARFID, Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder, Eating Disorders, Food Issues, Gen, Help, How Do I Tag, I saw a similar fic and a lack of ARFID content, I suck at writing fiction though, I'm Bad At Tagging, Mental Health Issues, Nonfiction, So here is my personal experiences and excentricities?, This could probably be considered triggering content?, Undiagnosed Eating Disorder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-03-10 16:27:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 8,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28100145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AuroreChaton/pseuds/AuroreChaton
Summary: Here's my own story with ARFID/something similar enough that I wrote because it's so nice to see the kind of content I can relate to. You get to have that now.Unless you don't know what ARFID is, in which case, all the more reason to read?It'll be my best attempt at codifying my own repulsion with certain foods, my safe foods/moods, and the way I've had my family react to my increasingly accurate descriptions of how I feel. My own experiences aren't as terrible as they could have been, by any means, but even if what I've felt hasn't been very extreme, it is certainly an opinion I feel like sharing.I'd love to see others' reactions or stories and please, if I, at any point, appear to be wrong about anything, push back. I have no real frame of reference!*Sporadic Updates, All Self-Contained!*
Kudos: 3





	1. ARFID

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> New here? Let me define some things.  
> A veteran? Feel free to skip to the meat of the issue. (Pun fully intended.)

So. Here you are, reading a "fic" about an eating disorder that no one's heard of. Great.

Let me guess, you know what Anorexia looks like, or how disgusting Bulimia is. You probably could vaguely empathize with image problems, or vomiting food up, or going through fasts. Maybe you even know what body checking content is, or knew someone with either disease. Good. Forget it all at the gate.

Welcome to eating disorders that aren't about self-image. Suffer with us.

ARFID. AKA Avoidant and Restrictive Food Intake Disorder, and often misrepresented as _extremely_ picky eating. Oh boy, is it so much worse. It's newly defined. With barely a decade of officially recorded cases, no one knows just how often it occurs. Few people know about it, and fewer actually can diagnose or get diagnosed with it. Instead of patients starving themselves trying to lose weight, ARFID sufferers can often starve themselves while attempting to gain weight, or without losing weight at all.

ARFID usually manifests as the symptoms listed in its name. Though individuals with it are hungry they often avoid food entirely, or eat to an extremely restrictive diet. Characteristically, their issues with food tend to be brushed off as issues with textures, tastes, smells, etc., or are associated with previous food-related "trauma"s. Often this means whole food groups can be eliminated by association with a certain memory or taste. This isn't a purposeful diet in an attempt to lose weight, this is the avoidance of food that genuinely, if somewhat irrationally, make the person feel anywhere from uncomfortable to distressed. People with Avoidant or Restricted Food Intake Disorder don't eat when they're hungry, or don't get many of the necessary nutrients out of their "safe" foods.

ARFID tends to manifest in younger people, children and teens, and has no real cure. Patients literally have to use the age-old adage of "just get over it", and it can take their entire lifetime to do. Essentially, exposure therapy, in the same way its uses for fears or more overt traumas, is the only real solution experts have at the moment. Worse, no two cases are likely to be comparable in any substantial way beyond not eating enough.

In an effort to remedy a few of those issues, I'm putting my personal experiences with this monster of a disease on the internet for the world to see. Yay.

I could put a disclaimer here that I'm not officially diagnosed (yet), but I'm going to spend the next however many chapters defending my right to use this label. If at any point it comes out that I do not, in fact, have ARFID, I will either take this down or continue this with an addendum of how _that_ might go. 

_As it stands,_ ARFID is often undiagnosed and is a wide-reaching label, that I've done enough research into to feel confident using.


	2. Let's Start This Off Right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally editing, I write these at midnight and chronically use run-on sentences. Hoping to fix that habit, but my commas are more consistent! That's a win... 
> 
> Edit: I WAS going to reorganize my chapter order so that the titles match, but fuck it, it's too complicated Instead, let me remind you to comment, pls and thx! (maybe with a good title suggestion?)

So, I suppose the question is; why do this?

The generic answer I explained in my summary, but I think it'd do to address just how I got here. Maybe it's the stress of online schooling or my own school's condensed classes, but the past two weeks I've been having trouble sleeping, and, as per usual, eating. I've been looking at wholesome content and depressing content in equal part in the fandoms I'm a part of on AO3, where normally I'm more a plot and characters person. I stumbled across some content that lead me to the ARFID tag, which I hadn't seen anywhere else. There are so few works here since so few people seem to know about the damn thing. I'll admit to being in almost every fandom this tag applied to, so, I read it all.

Now, for context, I only first heard of ARFID in my mandatory health class two years ago now. It was a single slide in the eating disorder section, and I mostly forgot about it immediately after when I had a small silent breakdown during the depression talk. I was, at that point, at a low in my mental health, since I wasn't eating well and had finally started meeting resistance in my schooling. I was a bit worn down. By the time I thought to look it up, I couldn't remember what it had been called. It would be a few months before I tried googling some acronyms that sounded similar. I'll admit I didn't even look too far into it when I finally found it. This AO3 account and my youtube and discord are my only "social media" accounts (By choice, don't worry.) so I didn't have any community to be a part of, couldn't even look for or stumble across one. It was just something I was vaguely aware of.

On top of that, when I attempted to share my perspective with my mother, comparing my previous complaints to the checklists, she brushed it off. I'll note that I came to her at two in the morning sobbing, but I swear I was thinking straight, I was just emotional. My mom, who sat with me as I cried through my existential terror, or anxiety. My mother, who, when I begged for therapy, agreed. (Small tangent; she had no clue what to look for, and my therapist wasn't exactly the best. She was nice and all, but clearly not _great,_ seeing as she didn't suggest I see a psychiatrist and proceed to promote melatonin. Bad moves. I digress) She said something along the lines of; It's the internet... The implication, of course, being that I was overreacting and self-diagnosing myself with cancer because of a cough. I was self-aware, I knew how I looked and pleaded for her to just consider it. Mull it over. Maybe trust me here, just once. At that point, she didn't

Now, I should say I love my mom. Neither of my parents are neglectful, and they really care. My mom's been accommodating my eating habits for years to the best of her ability. It doesn't mean I remotely _trust_ my father with any of my mental health problems directly, knowing how he'll act. It doesn't mean I don't cook most of my own food now, and I really do. It _does_ mean it hurts any less to see her not even take it seriously, no matter how valid the need to be dubious. Maybe I hadn't seemed to explain it well enough. Maybe because there's no cure it doesn't seem to be worth the effort to get it diagnosed. Except, when I started showing signs of dermatographia, a simple, harmless condition a lot of teens experience, she got overly concerned, and brought it up with a pediatrician. So, clearly, I'm working against the bias of no visible issues.

I know a lot of people with ARFID have trouble getting to a good weight if they have to exercise to any degree, but I haven't. Perhaps because my safe foods aren't terrible. Perhaps because I'm lucky. Perhaps because my inclination is to sit in a chair all day anyway. It doesn't stop my stomach from feeling warm and growling, and though I can _name_ this as hunger, that doesn't ever seem to quite put the right idea in anyone's head. Hungry, through societal norms, implies a compulsion to eat. I don't have that. Sure, I feel uncomfortable, and theoretically, I should want to, but I can't. So, I sit in my chair to preserve the energy I have, and I always look healthy.

Understandably, then, I don't I can't really explain it to my friends, which, hey if you're reading this, that's neat! I don't mind sharing this, but it's always so much more coherent in writing, and also, a reminder I am as of yet undiagnosed, so I might be totally off. Thankfully everyone I know seems to be content to let it be just "an eating disorder" or "ARFID" without any more context or explanations. On the other hand, no one around me can relate to what I'm going through, or even really acknowledges it. So to finally see an opportunity to see and be seen, I was definitely emotional. I may or may not have stared of into the middle distance, expressionless while tears streamed down my face as I processed it all. None of your business.

In any case, I'm super inspired, but also I'm not going to read this over before posting. This is my honest effort to transcribe myself, and I want it unfiltered, even of most grammatical errors. So, here's my story...


	3. Avoidant

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So I addressed this already, I think, but I'm going to delve into the avoidant part of my disorder, instead of the restrictive part.

This was going to be my last general update, but I've switched it around! Now this is fairly specific to me and I likely have one or two general updates left.

I guess I should point out that I am, truly, safe, and happy in my own home. I'm privileged, I have ready access to food, and basically no restrictions from my parents, my mom being the most accomodating chef the world's seen. Most of the food she cooks is safe for me, either because it's what I grew up with, or because she's shifted her cooking for me.

My mom has been great in accomodating me since she has cooked dinner for our father for as long as I've been a part of their lives. Especially so when my dad started being the only one to work for us. My father is a fairly average picky eater. If he has ARFID too, it's less restrictive (his mom is also nice, but she also cooks more and better than my own mom, my grandmother is an angel) and, like mine, focuses more on the A part of the disease. My father, however, is much more formulaic about it if that's the case. He sleeps 5 hours and eats two big meals a day, with no deviation, except choosing breakfast or lunch to actually eat. With that, I would like to note he eats slightly larger portions and seems perfectly healthy, so I'm putting heavy doubt on that possibility.

And here's where the problems of actually diagnosing ARFID in me actually arise. Both me and my dad, have Crohn's Disease, an IBD, which is obviously closely related to foods. Crohn's patients, like many IBD patients, can experience cramps or pain after eating, or other trauma that can lead to ARFID like inability to or fear of eating, even when hungry. Occasionally it even correlates to certain foods. Worse, both my ARFID symptoms and Crohn's are worse than my father's. 

How could I ever be confident the ARFID itself exists independent of Crohn's?

Simple. I've never once experienced symptoms other than bleeding from my Crohn's. I spent a week in the hospital because the Crohn's in my family presents differently both from other family cases and from the norm. If there was a way to be asymptomatic for Crohn's, I would embody it. (I was also _WAY_ young for it and then snow, so I got to be there for a week. The most sleep I've gotten in my life, I swear to you.) I've never cramped due to my Crohn's, and these problems did not arise with my IBD.

I experience Avoidance based on texture and taste because I feel like some invisible string sits beneath the skin of my throat and physically clamps down on my entire esophagus and somehow even my tongue every time I try to eat something unsafe. No, it feels as though my entire throat shouldn't exist. It was a mistake, and my head should detach like some dullahan, and my sustenance gained through crystals of photosynthesis. It feels like every bite of even safe foods will make me vomit, even though I don't feel nauseous. 

I've found that I can only eat even my safe food comfortably if I wait until lunch, or if I force myself to eat breakfast through the trauma. Eating early is unbearably hard with most foods, but only drinking makes me nauseous for a good hour after. I'd still prefer to just drink something. Cereal is the only food that actually works in the mornings, but I've become so ingrained in my own habits of not eating I often forget to. Eating almost anything is more hassle than it's worth, or I'm craving food that doesn't exist. It's a whirling mass of contradictory feelings that undulates, changing with any given moment, making it impossible to start eating, and all to easy to just give up in the middle of a meal.

If, however, I'm allowed free reign over my food choice, I can facilitate healthy eating.

Just take today as the perfect example.

I wake up at noon, dragging myself out of bed because I have to get my retainers checked. (I did "nice" by the way since I barely get my teeth dirty anyway. What a plus.) but suddenly the fruit juice I downed 3 cups of yesterday is rancid today. Something about it is off, even though nothing's changed. I'm desperately hungry since I didn't eat anything substantial yesterday, but I can't drink.

Instead of freezing, I start searching. Even this isn't unusual. My mom offers me these ceramic bowels for quick omelet/scrambled egg cooking. She likes them even with just eggs in them. I try one, and immediately back out. Too dry, flat, and bubbly for my throat to accept. I try again with some cheese, but we don't have the milk to keep the consistency. I eat more of it before giving up. Luckily my sister is eager to jump in and claim the rest.

I can't have cereal without milk, not reliably, and I'm desperate for something filling but soft. Bread. I absolutely hate having plain bread, because it's slightly more irritating than my safe foods, at all times throughout, but strangely I can almost always tolerate it the entire time regardless. As though knowing it will help more than anything else ever could is enough to not make it completely unbearable. Even as the fibers scratch at my taste buds and mush into my molars.

Don't worry, after this ordeal, my mom's going shopping! I still don't feel up for anything when she asks what I want to eat. She's asking for my safe foods after the Thai food thing, and she wants to give me free rein over food choices throughout the day. She understands that, and I quote; " Eating breeds eating." She hopes getting me to eat, even if it's unhealthy, will get me to eat something real. Something I've known and noticed for about a year, but she's catching on. Habit and eating literally _anything_ , no matter how bad for me, encourages appetite. I ask for fish and bird. I'm not up for either, but I had luck with turkey before, and chicken curry can usually coax me into at least a small portion, no matter how out of I am, and we haven't had fish too frequently lately. More than half of our taste when eating comes through smell, and I do love the smell of salmon in our house.

I have been almost unstoppably on a salt kick since that hospital visit, but for once, I can't have my go-to of sour cream and onion chips. I don't want to go straight for the chocolate, no matter how tempting it is comparatively. She comes back with Doritos. Maybe it was the cheese I had earlier, but while I can't say I was craving Doritos per se, I was up to eating them, so I did. The first thing I'm actually not repulsed by all day. Doritos. My mom was right though.

Almost as soon as I force myself to seek something else out, suddenly fruit sounds pretty good. I tear through a banana. Suddenly I'm hungry and willing to snack. Nearly half an hour prior I couldn't eat anything in the house, but now, I might just get to eat dinner.

Of _course,_ it's not usually so fast-acting, but I have noticed that if I can force myself to eat breakfast for multiple days in a row, not only will I feel legitimately hungry come lunch, not just vaguely weak, or distantly aching, but actively, food seeking-ly, _hungry,_ but it'll also get easier to eat anything in the days following. It's never easy. Of course, but enough experimentation has gifted me hope.

I'm certain that everyone has different issues and different ways of combating them, but I might revisit general solutions I think could be applicable. I can't be certain this whole thing isn't too esoteric or too obvious to anyone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the love of all things, if you made it this far, please kudo or comment. I don't necessarily expect you to ever return to this, but I would like to know that people genuinely enjoy my writing or feel seen or something. I'm not sure anyone beyond my friends/parents will see this, but I want others to see it. Desperately. I made this hoping they/you would, as well as to have a good place to expound upon my experiences and ARFID in general to my friends. More people should be aware of it, and how it can impact a person's daily life.


	4. Food

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here, in an attempt to figure out my triggers, I compile every food I have that I can, at some point, eat/drink, in the order I'm most likely to want to/be okay with having them. I may come back to this one a LOT.

I'll be honest, when I feel like it, I can eat a lot of different foods. When I'm feeling good enough or hungry enough, or it's the right time of day, I can have almost any of the foods I'm about to list. No more.

Let's see if you can spot the trends.

Drinks:

Milk, either 2% or whole, of most brands. (Falling out of favor as of late, which might just been my need for seasonal hot chocolate.)

Apple cider. Not juice, just cider./Orange Juice are both on the same level. (Occasionally Pink lemonade, but only certain brands, things that taste like the Gatorade pink lemonade are out [seriously is that stuff _made_ of plastic?!?])

Hot (milk) chocolate. (It's better with peppermint, marshmallows, or whipped cream.)

Powerade and Gatorade in most flavors.

... cold to the point of nearly freezing Juice, and just fruit juices or berry juices, no cranberry or grape.

only, and I can't stress this enough, _iced_ water. And even then only after a workout of some kind.

~~~

Meats:

Turkey (White, Roasted, No skin) (comfort food of mine, which is lucky considering the holidays...) (Potatoes on the side, most any kind! Occasionally cranberry sauce too!)

Chicken (White, Roasted or Indian Curried, No skin, Occasionally breaded tenders, but only certain brands b/c of the breadings!)

Pepperoni (Usually uncooked, and only with cheese and crackers, nothing else)

Ribs (I've mostly gotten over the fatty thing, but only for ribs, and only Chillies' cow ribs [because of the BBQ sauce], so IDK.)

Beef (Indian Curried or Grilled [burgers are delicious if they small, yo], but nothing too fatty/chewy!)

~~~

Vegetables/Fruits:

Pineapple/Cantalope/Watermelon

Golden Delicious Apples. (Maybe Cortlands or Granny Smiths)/Bartlett Pears

Blueberries/Strawberries

Corn on the Cob, slathered in butter and salt and pepper.

Lettuce (*Crumunchp*)

Bananas, kinda

(I actually legitimately enjoy all of these so far, so it's not like I've got _nothing;_ as I said, mine isn't that bad!)

Green Beans (Uncooked, Whole, and _only -and don't ask why-_ dipped in apple sauce.)

I can stomach carrots, but only when they're slice using a fucking peeler. (Or in soup!)

I've been working on broccoli heads and spinach (both uncooked) because they don't taste too bad, it's all texture, and because I need to eat more healthy food. I'm working on it. Slowly. Very slowly.

~~~

Misc. "Meal" Foods:

Breakfast pastries, from french toast to pancakes and waffles!

Salmon. (Maybe Haddock) _No_ other seafood. (I eat both this and curry with white or mildly spiced minute rice!)

Pasta, of any and all kinds. BUT the sauce matters. (Chunks are a no go in anything remotely resembling Sauce or Butter. Spices are mostly interchangeable.) If you're making mac and cheese and it forms something resembling a film or hardened layer on the top, I do NOT want it. The same goes with cheesy pasta sauce dishes like lasagna. (although I will take what's under it. Ricotta is my jam.) Alternatively, serve with mayo and tuna. (May I just say I don't like those on their own, or even together without the pasta, but FUCK is it good altogether.)

Eggs. I prefer poached but I'll take them in any way you could imagine. With a side of breakfast sausages too (Soooo good! [why yes I did leave this from the meat section because I would never have this without eggs just out of habit, thanks for noticing])! No toast though!

Campbells Chicken Noodle Soup (Never the celery) and Beef Stew (I can eat the peas in that, but not the beans!)

(I'll note I've been on a chicken noodle soup kick for the past month, so I might move it up if it holds steady.)

Pizza (only cheese or meatball, and I'll either eat one slice or 10, it's good when it's good, but that isn't all the time.)

Burgers and hot dogs are hit or miss, as are the fries that go with them.

(I might come back here the most)

~~~

Snacks and desserts:

Icecream cakes, it doesn't matter the flavor. If it has some kind of chocolate brittle it's even better.

Cream Pies

Restaurant Mozzarella Cheese Sticks! ( ... a bit out of left field but I fucking love these shits.) (Should mention here that my cheese list is Mozarella, Ricotta, American, and cheddar products, but not cheddar itself, and extends no further, but I fucking LOVE mozzarella. It's so good!)

Filled donuts, from Boston creme (the best one!) to jelly or vanilla creme. 

Icecream of basically any flavor (not usually caramels tho)

Fruit Pies

Brownies!

Puddings, and flavor but caramel or vanilla (vanilla pudding varies brand to brand since it's hard to flavor something with a naturally incompatible taste with vanilla! [I made pastry cream my self, which is essentially the same thing (not quite), and it had the same tang as the vanilla pudding we have at home.])

Most other donuts

Most normal cakes

Three Muskateers chocolate bars or Reese's cups. (Occasionally things like butterfingers are good, which is really an upset the kinds of trends I'm assembling here. And to conventional taste.)

Various cookies, from chocolate chips to thin mints, to even some coconut ones (I hate coconut, so surprise!). This is really a matter of taste.

Most Sourcream and onion chips/Pringles originals/Doritoes or Cheese based "chips"

Saltines/Wheat Thins (Originals)/Cheezits/Town House Originals

(Can't think of more right now, will come back)

SO. As you can see, that's a fairly generous list for someone with ARFID. Especially with the kinds of foods, but I really didn't give you much of a sliding scale. Most of these aren't going to interest me unless it's the first thing I've had all day. Some I don't have ready/quick access to or can't overindulge in. (i.e. turkey, lasagna, and most desserts)

Simple trends: 

Keep it simple! too many flavors are too much! (Spices are fine, _spicy_ is fine, and anything with a filler starch is fine, but any of that "complexity" that chefs will boast about is a no go. Simple sauces too, no relishes or weird custom whatever!.)

Keep it liquid and smooth. Dry, chewy, or chunky things are my triggers! A good example of this is peanut butter v/s jam. Jam, despite being thicker, feels more like a liquid, since it has water, not oil, as it's main fluid. Fruits are the one exception to the no chunks rule, since they're fleshy, and tend to practically melt anyways. (You may also note the lack of sodas or carbonated drinks here.)

Keep it cold or hot, no in-between. Drinks are cold, meals are hot, almost any lukewarm or room temp foods on this list can be combined into a warm or cold meal! (crackers, pepperoni, and cheese, in the microwave for a minute, BAM, delicious. Or, alternatively, both cheese and pepperoni chilled beforehand, BAM delicious.)

That being said, it's very clear that my particular manifestation of ARFID is _heavily_ texture-based, with almost no exceptions. I obviously prefer my drinks to taste fairly bland (The colder it is, the less you taste it. Drinking through a straw has the same effect. If you have trouble with a drink, I recommend trying it cold and through a straw. Same goes for fruits if you make a smoothie out of them!)

I used to have problems just as much with taste, but whether I've pushed past my sweet tooth in an effort to incorporate bitter/bland foods for variety or just outgrew the normal teen aversion, I have no way of knowing.

In any case, with the exception of drinks, what exactly I can eat at any given time is never this whole list. After I exercise on an empty stomach, it opens up to about half the list, generally speaking. Things like lettuce, turkey, cookies, and soups tend to stay relatively open, although even that can change. On average, no more than 5-(maybe)10(If we're generous) are very appealing at any time, no matter how my stomach grumbles.

But what exactly does my reaction to a non-appealing food look like?


	5. Restrictive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I seem to have such a wide menu to choose from, but here's where it starts to go downhill. Exactly what does hunger, thirst, and rejection feel like to me?

I used to simply say I didn't like the food.

I don't think it really hit me that I might not just dislike them until I vomited trying to eat some raw broccoli. Since broccoli was a trigger, and raw broccoli is _drier_ than cooked broccoli, I had an understandably hard time with it. To be fair, I was maybe 8-9, and it was the first and last time I would vomit something up for no other discernable reason.

See, my reaction isn't to gag or vomit. In fact, if you weren't in my body, you wouldn't notice anything weird beyond a grimace. Instead, when I eat practically anything, I feel almost like I'm choking anyway. Every bite is an effort not to keep food down, but to _get_ it down. It's less an impulse to spit, and more an impulse to _not swallow_. Maybe that's a natural resistance to nausea and gagging on my part. Maybe that's just how it manifests in me. So far, I've only seen people mention gagging or vomiting, and I feel it's an important distinction to make. I do, occasionally get nauseous if I'm only drinking liquids that day, or I have too much warm food too fast, but that's more than expected.

Additionally, I tend to binge. Drawn out snacking is not really a capacity for me. If I eat the whole bag of chips, it's in 15 minutes. When I'm capable of eating I scarf it all down as fast as possible, because, as my kraft mac and cheese so kindly alerted me, the longer I spend eating, the worse the feeling of choking gets. Every swallow, every stretch of time with food in my mouth, everything adds up over time, building until I feel like I couldn't physically open my throat for another bite. I don't want you to get the wrong idea. It's not like I can't breathe, but like something is constricting around my throat but only affecting my ability to swallow. Like the muscles themselves clamp down on themselves when I smell food. Constricting to the point of only allowing liquids to pass. Perhaps that's why, then, I need liquid, fleshy, slimy foods, because as gross as those adjectives sound, they're the only thing that won't irritate those muscles, those sensors, that _reaction_.

I have basically no way of differentiating hunger and thirst, as I've starved myself for so long, and my stomach is almost constantly warm in its effort to eat itself. Because this does go beyond hunger, and this is not a good kind of warmth, and yet even as I listen to my own stomach gurgle quietly every few seconds as I type this, I feel like I couldn't really eat much if I tried. Today is a soup or salmon day, but we don't have salmon to cook and I had the last can of soup yesterday. I can't get a drink because we're out of milk and I can't have any chocolate milk right now because I've been drinking only that for a few days straight.

It's not intentional starvation. I'm not unhappy with my image. I couldn't care less about how others see me. I'm sharing this all willingly knowing I might share it with friends, and I don't care how they respond. I've always had a flagrant disregard for the concept of self-images, self-loathing, even, and yet somehow I've ended up with both some undiagnosed depression/anxiety and an eating disorder, both things usually associated with one's sense of self. People try to reassure people with depression that they are loved because they assume they're just being negative to beat themselves up, that they somehow choose to get themselves stuck in a rut because they think they deserve it. And while that may occasionally be true, depression and self-worth are not inherently linked. Sure the less self-worth you have, the more likely you are to be depressed, but it's not a guarantee either way.

I would be happy with myself, no matter my looks, as long as I could keep my heart rate and blood pressure down in healthy ranges for my weight and age. But I can't because that requires exercise, something I can't do without getting dizzy and weak all over, not for lack of muscle mass, although there is some of that, but for lack of energy stores. I literally can't even get myself up to my resting athleticism level (kept strong only by textbooks, metabolism, and a staircase or four.) because I stop being able to activate my own fucking muscles, and I'm not humiliated getting winded walking up the stairs because as much as anyone could mock me for it, my legs barely burn.

Now, if only I could get a diagnosis. Right?


	6. Disorder

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A very late update on the importance of diagnosis.

Alright.

So for anyone from the future, this chapter is late. Posted two weeks later, in fact.

I've been struggling to write why, exactly, I believe a diagnosis would actually matter for me, a person in a privileged situation. I'm not underweight as a result of my disorder, and I can afford to choose what I eat. It's not even like there's some cure that will allow me to start eating vegetables as soon as the doctors diagnose me. I know what I have, and I know what it means for me. I'm doing all I can to work around it as is, so what could a diagnosis actually hand me?

Today, I encountered it. The event that enlightened me? Choosing a birthday dinner. (Happy early birthday to me, btw.)

My grandparents wanted to take me out (Don't worry, with my social habits, I'm more likely to catch **the disease** from them than the other way around.), but wanted me to choose.

Problem is, I've been having, I suppose a flare-up of sorts? I've barely eaten the past few days, and we had both Subway (fucking love a toasted chicken sandwich; someone tell me how they marinate that shit.) and pizza in the past month, as well as all of my safety foods, from chicken tenders to soup, turkey to fish, etc. All the foods I'd fall back on. (Not that I'm not desperately hungry every day, what with all the all-nighters. I'll note that might be the cause of my flare-up.) None of my normal restaurants are appealing. (I might be up for some Chilli's ribs, but also, I'm still training myself up to the fat and crispy parts of it, so I tend not to actually eat a lot there, and tire of the meat texture incredibly quickly. I can't win.) So I ask my mom for suggestions.

The problem with it? Thai food.

See, here's the problem with where I live, my options for foreign food restaurants are kinda' limited in what they serve, and how they serve it. Now, I'd had no clue what Thai food even stereotypically consisted of. (I live under a rock; yell at me all you want.) So, when I see a small menu with coconut-based curries, and with mushrooms and/or onions in every dish, I immediately opt out of the whole experience.

Now, coconut, mushrooms, and onions are _all_ foods I hate for both taste, and because of minor incidents with taste testing all of them, texture. (I got over the coconut trauma, but it's still disgusting in taste, so I figure I actually just don't like it.) Now, if it were just texture, I could handle the dishes being cooked in them. The problem is, every single dish contained one or more of those, or cooked peppers, scallions, or some other thing that hit the same exact problems. I found maybe one entire dish that didn't immediately activate red flags, but was cooked in a sauce I'd never even had a variation of, so really, there was nothing safe there. Now, for as picky as I get accused of being, I'm not traumatized. I will pick things out, as annoying as it, if it's central to the dish, or ask for it removed, but there were at least two in every dish and not even a basic noodle dish to choose for the low-hassle option. No food to fall back on if I didn't like it. We would have had to go to an entirely different restaurant. 

That kind of defeats the purpose of going, (i.e. me trying Thai food.) so, of course, I vetoed it.

That's where the problem actually arose. See, my mom, who's been very understanding of my "pickiness" kept needling me to try it, or to try modifying it. She has a good grasp of what I can and can't _bear_ to consume, so she looked through the menu herself, prodding me to have certain items. When I was adamant in my position, to the point of raising my voice at her, a rarity for interactions between the two of us, she huffily tried to brush it off, saying she supposed it was fine I didn't want to try something new on my birthday and she didn't have to understand me, just respect me.

(Sidenote: I have never, not once in my life, valued my birthday in any way above other days. It's either celebrated with Christmas or on/around my half-birthday. I often forget it's my birthday because the actual day doesn't fucking matter to me. In fact, I'm happier when people give me gifts for existing, rather than reaching an arbitrary milestone. I just saw our grandparents for Christmas Eve too, there's literally nothing inherently special about this beyond us actually going out, which means I should be _happy_ to take the opportunity to try Thai food, so that part literally boggles my mind. And no, just because you concede doesn't mean I can't hear how disappointed/annoyed you are that you had to. Tangent over.)

Which, okay. That may be the case between friends, but from someone that close to me, who raised me, and is supposed to have a kind of bond that's, ya know, familial, I think you should both understand _and_ respect me. Not to mention that understanding breeds respect, and you literally were just, ya know, _not respecting_ my decision, because you couldn't comprehend how I could so vehemently and stubbornly refuse any option so quickly. So obviously you should, in multiple senses understand where I'm coming from here.

Mind you, this is coming from a person who accommodates my eating habits as well as possible, and who knows I suspect ARFID in myself. I trust my father even less to understand this issue since he doesn't seem to be able to discern the difference between undiagnosed and non-existent when it comes to mental disorders. (I might elaborate further eventually.) And I genuinely consider my father to be a reasonable and intelligent individual. He's got a lot of knowledge in his head, and he's very "grand scheme" financially/economically, politically, etc. He's not some flat-earth/anti-vax ill-informed parent. But he does have a few unaddressed biases he's carried with him from his and his parent's generation, and unfortunately, he's not just stubborn, but quick to both rage, and shut down an argument. He's quicker to shut down your sources and information than his own biases, which makes him impossible to argue with unless he's already stated openly that he's open to changing his mind, or is curious on a subject. Imagine how much worse anyone more close-minded or stubborn than him could be.

So maybe, just maybe, having "look, it's my ARFID." to fall back on, even as an excuse, would be nice. To have something I can point to with certainty, and say, "yes, a medical professional has validated the way I feel and think and can't eat." would help me as much as any treatment. 

And therein lies the crux of it all. Certainty.

Every time I want to talk about my ARFID I have to note that it's just self-diagnosed, which of course, makes me sound like a faker or malicious entity here to invalidate the struggles of everyone else when really I'm here to shed light on the issue of an undiagnosed, mild, or both, as they often go hand-in-hand, manifestation of an eating disorder that affects me, and countless others, in our daily lives. I do it with my friends and I did it here.

Since ARFID has only been so recently acknowledged in the medical field, I can only presume it is severely under-diagnosed. Just now, I looked up criteria for diagnosis, and it boils down to; avoiding food because of bad memories or taste/texture/etc; having a disinterest in eating; being underweight. The problem is, that's pretty vague.

I'm not underweight, but that doesn't really invalidate the existence of a mental disorder preventing me from eating the necessary amounts because I have the luxury of not moving all day, and all of my safe foods are fairly fattening, and don't include water. Proving I avoid food because of texture/taste beyond just being picky is much harder than proving I avoid specific foods after having a bad encounter with them, since most people avoid certain foods, but also, I can't drink water, and have a listable number of safe foods, even if it isn't necessarily small. And what does a disinterest mean, exactly, because I'm desperate to eat, if I could only eat what I wanted to or could eat via tube/IV. I actively go looking for food all the time, I just tend to walk away empty-handed. 

The list goes on.

In other news, this summer my mom will look into getting a diagnosis. Now to figure out B-day dinner... 


	7. Intake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So, You have ARFID. What's a person to do?

In a collaborative effort with my mother, I've been attempting to eat _more_. Whatever it is I'm eating.

Now, I'm an Avoidant eater more than a Restrictive eater, although obviously there are elements of both. This means that it's hard for me to start, and to keep eating under most circumstances. My meals are smaller and are either constant snacking or maybe a meal a day. So, instead of focusing on the Restrictive part, as that's my mom's job, I've been working on the Avoidant part. Here are my discoveries.

  1. Breakfast is the worst, so it means _everything_.



If I don't sleep at night, I get hungrier, so, so much quicker. If I sleep... I wake every morning with horrible breath, a terrible not-hunger, and a crippling inability to drink anything without getting nauseous. Bread is not _really_ a safe food of mine, but when I'm desperate, a single slice can help me keep a drink down until lunch when my nausea dissipates. The trick is to shove an absorbant food into your mouth ASAP. Bread, Crackers, Chips, Cereal, Cookies, etc. ANYTHING that you can get down.

The sooner I do it, the better. Sometimes this means I have to eat something else first, like a fruit, and sometimes it means scarfing it down while I still can't see anything, and sometimes I have to work through or up to it.

Breakfast doesn't just stave off nausea though, it also kick-starts your metabolism. Used to not actually feeling hungry at lunch? Chances are if you eat breakfast you will feel hunger by that time far worse than you'd feel it at dinner, or whatever time the hunger will hit if you don't eat. It seems counter-intuitive, but your stomach will go dormant when you aren't using it, and if you're used to mild hunger pangs, you might not even notice you're hungry because of it. Eating early can wake your stomach up enough for you to really notice the growls later in the day. It makes you more likely to wander, if you're at home or someplace with a general cafeteria, and will generally time itself if you have a scheduled lunch.

Eating breakfast gets you an extra meal in the package. If you're brave enough.

2\. It doesn't matter what it is.

I touched on the "Doritos giving me the strength to get some potassium in my system" story, I think, but it holds true at all times. If you can't eat a lot at once, make sure you snack a few hours before any big meal. Enough time to not feel full, enough for your metabolism to kick into gear. Eating breeds eating, if you eat a lot in a day, you'll eat more that evening, and the next day. Often times ARFID afflicted persons (How do I phrase this? Tell me.) will have difficulty eating certain things at any given moment, but even if you eat your dessert early, or you have to have twice as many cookies as you wanted, getting down some protein and carbs can keep you healthier, and at the very least, more able to work out some calories later. You need to eat, it doesn't matter if that means a slice of cake in the morning.

3\. Routine.

You get hungry at certain times over the day. You can, however, manipulate when those times are. Breakfast Lunch and Dinner are important to keep within an hour or two of the norm. In doing so, you train away excuses and train your hunger to hit when you want it to. Breakfast should always be first in a routine for people with ARFID since it helps set up eating as a priority. You can't miss it because you're in a rush (You'd be healthier to put off a shower or brushing your teeth), and you wake up thinking about food. The first thing you spend time on in the day can help set your day's tone and your own mindset.

I personally change first because my style doesn't require thought before I head to yank open the fridge, but it's basically my first priority at 6 am. I have school lunches, around noon. If I sleep in, I'll allow myself a bigger brunch/ more snacks over the day, since I tend to sleep in until at least 10 am. Dinner is usually from 5-7 pm, depending. It's very even, and very predictable. I'll have a snack at around 3 pm on most days since despite my advice lunch is usually my first meal.

When I don't follow a routine, namely summers and breaks, I tend to end up eating far less, as I'll stay holed up in my room or at my computer, with nothing to eat until dinner. My ability to drink is not interfered with too badly, as I tend to wander off for drinks when I need a physical or emotional break, before immediately squirreling myself away again. Usually, I don't tend to grab foods on these breaks as I also usually forget to adhere to both of the other rules during these times.

4\. If it can be made in advance; make it.

Here's the thing. I fucking crumpch on salads. Unfortunately, I do not like to have the leftover salad, with all the soggy lettuce and carrot-tasting peppers. The solution? Containers of pre-cut veggies ready to be a salad at any moment. We recently put this in, and I've been eating shredded carrots like there's no tomorrow. (The best way to eat carrots is to take a peeler to a big carrot until you reach the bone. That shit don't feel or taste like carrot, eat it for hours and put it on everything.) This works great for fruits and veggies, where you can get them from the store and immediately put them in a container. The same amount of space, hopefully, less waste.

A small addendum; if you can leave it in plain sight, or out of the kitchen, do it. Seeing something like that outside of thinking about food can be a lot more tempting. We keep bananas on the counter, and occasionally bags of chips around the living room. Casual snacks, and no thoughts necessary.

And now, moving on to more restrictive food issues!

5\. Smell.

Over half of the way things taste is based solely on how it smells. If you struggle with foods solely because of taste or texture, cook them into dishes with strong smells, or meats. Cooking things into dishes tempers their texture. (For example, squash pasta sauce. I don't do squash because of the grainy mush texture, but watered down and cooked, it can reach a similar consistency to tomato sauce. I haven't tried it, but at the very least I'm a lot more willing to try that than to try squash mash again.) And spices and meats can have heavy enough aromas. Sauces tend to be the best for eliminating taste, as blending things makes them harder to taste for whatever reason. (Cold and Through A Straw are the two other things that subdue tastes, so smoothy your least favorite fruits?)

Basically, if you don't like a food outright, try messing around with small amounts of it instead of jumping into trying to tolerate it. Sure, maybe you eventually will be able to eat squash, but not if you just start forcing yourself into it, you could just end up hating it more. Hiding it from yourself works best.

6\. Chocolate.

If you can, whenever you have chocolate, put something you can't eat plain into it. Chocolate and chocolate derivatives have an incredibly strong flavor and texture and can make eating something else a lot easier. Vegetables are a safe bet, from spinach to broccoli, anything with a subtle enough flavor and you'll never notice. Don't go out and cover them with chocolate, but every time you make a cake or brownie mix, chop something up into it. Fruits are always good, but go wild. It's a good way to sneak yourself some extra vitamins, and an even better to start adding foods you hate to your repertoire. Just make sure not to saturate the mix with something you hate. Would be a waste of brownies. 

Small addendum; this works with most sweets with cinnamon or other strong flavors too. If you bake a batter, try putting something small into it. Just make sure they're very fine particles! Looking for more savory bread recipes for a given yeast bread might also let you add meats to it.

Other than that, it's part trial and error, and part repetition. Treat it like a phobia, because it is, and yourself like a baby who throws a tantrum about certain foods, and work at the problem from that angle. ARFID usually restricts foods that are associated with bad or no memories from your diet, so you have to start the baby would; association and new memories. Weird combinations, like applesauce and green beans (A personal favorite. Enough Crunch, enough Sauce, it's good shit.) allow you to experiment with safe and unfamiliar foods, or adjust what you don't like about certain foods. (I find green bean skins too stringy and dry. Apple sauce is a great counter. Also usually is a cinnamon apple sauce, which doesn't hurt with the bitter and sharp tangy flavor of the green beans being so overt.) Don't be afraid to try it if It sounds even remotely okay.

My personal trick is to allow others to experiment in my presence. Do you think I would have thought to have stir fry on my own?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is brought to you by the stack of printed a stack of recipes, and some sheet protectors.  
> We just need a damn wok and some ingredients now. I'm hungry just thinking about it.
> 
> Some of this is fairly normal advice for picky children. The reason why is pretty obvious, huh?
> 
> On the other hand, never do something that could traumatize yourself/whoever you know that has ARFID. You'll cause some backsliding and a worse struggle.


	8. Daily Life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's been a month since I last updated because I got most of my thoughts out. Just thought I'd give a small update summarizing it.

So I've been gone a while.

I know I noted that I backslid at some point prior, but man is it getting hard to eat in here!

Okay, so that's not true, I've just not been up for most of my favorite foods: it's cravings season. I went long enough without anything but chips that I emptied an entire box of penne pasta into a pot, slapped some tuna and mayo on it, and ate half of it in the span of fifteen minutes. So I'm eating, just not enough variety. I wasn't up for pizza or chicken or eggs and sausages, all my fav. dinners. My stomach's rejecting hot cocoa too: I can't have the big cups anymore without feeling sick.

The problem? Not enough SOUP! 

See, my mom bought a turkey and was attempting to recreate a chicken noodle soup but turkey remixed, so she when she finally went to get some canned stuff after she demolished our homemade variety (Which she thought was way better than I did, I maintain too many noodles and too thin.) they didn't have any, and now I'm starving.

It might sound overdramatic, but anyone with ARFID knows the feeling of looking at a stocked pantry, thinking of all the recipes they enjoyed last week and going; "There's nothing to eat!" because to us there really isn't. My mom is used to me making my own dinners or eating something pre-packaged during dinner because she may have cooked but there's no food there. It's a game of roulette, if you lose you starve. It's harder for me, just because of my sister.

Not to fault her, kind of, but she doesn't have the same reservations I do with food. She'll eat one of those mega tubs of goldfish in two days and still be eating multiple meals a day. She doesn't have my eating disorder, she likes fruits, veggies, pasta, and meats of all kinds, but her favorites are always dangerously near my favs. She doesn't have to hesitate over menus or care what mom's making for dinner because she doesn't have to make her own. Let me reiterate that though, her favorites are close to or overlapping mine. Which means she will eat and drink my safe foods with no remorse. We go through so much jello and cider and, well actually the potato chips are my mom most of the time, but my point stands! We've got a pantry full of food and where I cant' see anything I would keep down, she doesn't see anything she can pop in her mouth no prep time needed!

I don't really blame her, I'm not diagnosed with anything, why should I get dibs on the food? But it does get frustrating to find the jello I'm using to up my water intake disappear overnight. It sucks to find all of the unfrosted cupcakes I'm using as breakfast and stomach acid sponge being monched on in place of the ice cream we have literally in the freezer, why would you EVEN- and it's especially frustrating when I made them myself, and she can't take 12 minutes to make some mac and cheese for our lunch once in a while. It's a slow-building frustration, and it only really hits me when I can't use cupcakes right now, I'm switching to chips for a bit instead, and she wants me to make more cupcakes. Or when she comes downstairs for a second helping of dinner and then makes grabby-hands at my food.

And yet all of this is standard fare. This isn't the first time I've hit a slump in my food intake patterns. Those tend to hit me hard with some light waves of depression or whatever the fuck is making me really apathetic all the time just before my food intake drops like a rock. It's not odd for my weight to fluctuate through a wide range, it's not odd for me to be out of breath on the stairs and to shake after cardio or a small adrenaline rush because my blood sugar and body weight is too low. It's not odd to nearly lose all vision when I stand up too fast or to stand in front of food with a grumbling stomach only to turn away because I'm not up to eating right now.

This isn't the first time for any of it. Most of it happens at least once daily, or, in the case of larger patterns, yearly. Occasionally there are the good periods, the weeks I go without skipping dinner, where I get at least one meal a day with protein and vitamins in it, or I don't feel nauseous in the mornings. Those small achievements, no matter how low the bar may seem, mean I'm on the right track.

There wasn't a big idea thing to this post. Nothing I haven't addressed, just a few pet peeves and a small update so you know I didn't starve.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comment me some new title suggestions at the very least bois, I'm a starving artist who needs sustenance, for which I require comments.
> 
> I just feel bad leaving this so long when I have time to update it, even if there isn't much left for me to say. I might label this finished now but I'll keep updating every month or 4!


End file.
